What are your favorite tools for learning to identify reef fish?

[love2godeep]

I'd just like to hear it from all you experts about what books/CDs/videos have been the most helpful to you in learning to identify reef fish. I have Humann's books/CDs and a few others, but I'm always looking for more.

Thanks!
L2GD

:thinkingo

 

[Bob3]

a COOKBOOK !!
I was going to say "Paul Humann's books & CDs" but ya beat me to it.

 

[archman]

A standard ichthyology text I find quite useful. They usually come along with a 3-4 credit hr. course with a laboratory portion however. Another great resource is an online message board with lots of fish folks, like this one.

And if you get REAL NUTS, there's always FISHBASE. They're not too great on photos, but the taxonomy is first rate, and they often have good ecological and distributional data.

 

[MikeC]

Knife and a fork help.... JUST joking.

 

[DFC5343]

The bizness end of a quality speargun...

 

[Jai Bar]

I like Debelius books. I haven't seen many books that contain so many species like his books. http://www.fetchbook.info/search_Helmut_Debelius/searchBy_Author.html.

The best internet site I've seen so far is http://www.fishbase.org/search.cfm

The most useful resource is of course lots of time for diving, patience and a "good eye"

 

[BEM]

"Fishes of the Caribbean and Adjacent Waters is pretty good.


www.reefnet.on.ca/products/reefseries/index.asp